


At the Mittag-Leffler Institute

by vatine



Category: The Laundry Files - Charles Stross
Genre: POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:17:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4498464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatine/pseuds/vatine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We know that the Laundry and related organisations keep tabs on academia, but how does it actually work? And what about advanced mathematical research institutes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Mittag-Leffler Institute

It was a perfectly nice summer afternoon in Djursholm, some 11 km north of Stockholm. A nice, warming sun in a blue sky, mostly devoid of clouds. Normally, a day like this finds me in a cheerful mood, with a kind and gentle disposition. However, today I had to subtly redirect one of our visit researchers from her recent lines of theorising. A certain Dr O'Brien, from somewhere in the UK.

Let me introduce myself. My name, as far as you're concerned, is Erik Svensson. I work as a caretaker and general staff at the Mittag-Leffler Institute. It is a mathematical research institute, housed in a building left behind by Gösta Mittag-Leffler. It frequently houses mathematical researchers on furlough from their normal environment. My other job is why I work at Mittag-Leffler in the first place. I am here on detached duty from the Bureau, to observe the mathematicians and side-track (or contain them) if they veer into territories where they should not be. Mathematics and logic echoes across space-time and if you solve the wrong theorem, you can open gateways to unspeakable horrors.

Which neatly brings me back to Dr O'Brien, who had something that looked eerily like a Dho-Nha curve chalked on her blackboard. Some gentle erasing and redrawing made it safe, but also required me to file a report. This is the second time I've had to file a report on her and I fear that if things progress much further, we'll have to have a chat with our friends in London.

My real employer, the Bureau, is a weird beast. Officially it doesn't exist. It's a merger of the remnants of the Marine Cipher Bureau, from the second world war and the Council for Mathematical Machines. The latter was a joint effort between the Royal Institute of Technology, the military and the Swedish Meteorologic Office. Officially, they were to construct and evaluate electronic computers, but they were also concerned with continuing the rather disturbing line of investigation opened due to the contents of some of the more secure German crypto systems. Then, in the early 60s, it was decided that the more obvious uses of mechanised computation should be moved into the industrial sphere, leaving a now officially non-existent government department, the Bureau, to continue the occult investigations and securing the kingdom from all threats magical and supernatural.

Which is why I am aware of our counterpart agencies around Europe, secret as they may be.

#

Next day, it's raining. Being an early riser, I brew a batch of coffee, fill my 2l pump thermos and make a round through our resident mathematicians. And, of course, a cup of tea for Dr O'Brien, she never takes coffee before noon.

O started with O'Brien, to let me get rid of the tea. Easier to carry around that way. I knocked on her door and said "Tea!" in a suitably loud voice. Some grumbling and shuffling from the other side. Then she opened the door and I could see what looked very much like an optical summoning containment set up on her desk. Naturally, I dropped her teacup on the floor, making a mess, so I could pull my stun gun out and drop her. She was faster than I expected, but I spend 4h per week training specifically how to stun unwilling targets.

Once she was down, I entered her room, pulled her away from the door and closed it. Once I was no longer obviously assaulting a visiting researcher, stretched her out on the floor, flipped her on her belly and tied her arms behind her back. Unfortunately, I did not have a gag, but she'd be out for another few minutes.

I pulled my mobile out and called the Bureau. "Erik here. I have a researcher at Mittag-Leffler that needs containment. Please contact the Laundry and have them send someone to take Dr O'Brien back to the UK and have her sworn in or whatever the Brits do. Also, get an ambulance here, that's going to be the easiest way of getting her out without problems."

I left Dr O'Brien's room and headed down to the front door, to sit for the ambulance. Two of my colleagues, let's call them Gösta and Arne, nodded at me and followed me with a stretcher. As they carried Dr. O'Brien down, I called one of the other caretakers. "Hi, It's Erik. Seems Dr O'Brien is not feeling well, I'm accompanying her to the emergency ward. Would you mind being on your own for a couple of hours? No? Good, see you this evening."

With Dr O'Brien safely stowed in the back of the ambulance, I sat in the passenger seat and the ambulance pulled away.

"So, Arne," I said, "what's new at the head office?"  
"Oh, nothing much. There's some grumblings from the Brits, there's apparently a new paper on when the breakthrough will happen. Nothing definite, though. So, Dho-Nha curves and an optical summoning grid? You sure that she's legit? Because that did not look like a first attempt."  
"Who know? I've been seeing some disturbing stuff in her maths over the last week or so, but nothing in this league."

Of course that is the moment my phone decided to ring. Non-disclosed number. That's a little surprising, since my phone shows the dialling number even if the caller has disabled caller ID. So this is not supposed to be possible. I answered, because I was getting curious. "Hi, who's this?" (although I was speaking in Swedish). "Terribly sorry," I heard from the other end. "Don't really speak Swedish, mind if we continue in English?"  
"Uh. What? No, not at all. Who are you?"  
"Let's just establish my credentials. You are Erik Svensson, undercover for the Bureau, at the Mittag-Leffler Institute. You have recently called in a level 2 alert on a Dominique O'Brien and if my information is correct, you are currently transporting her to a warded holding facility, in order to send her back to us. Did you bring her violin case?"  
"Why would I... No, I did not bring her violin case."  
"If so, could I please ask you to return to the Institute and pick it up, as soon as possible?"  
"If you explain why it's so important, I will."  
"Ah, yes, she has the incognito violin case. My wife plays an Erich Zahn original, it is of vital importance that the case doesn't get too far from her."  
"Hold on..."

I muted the phone and turned to Arne. "You didn't bring the violin case from her room, did you?" He looked at me and chuckled. "No, I didn't think it was important. Why?"  
I found myself speechless for a brief moment. "Apparently, it's an Erich Zahn. We need to turn back, right now."

I unmuted the phone, "We're returning to the Institute to pick the violin up, right now."

#

Once we reached the warded cells in Ytterby Gruva, we transferred Dr. O'Brien to a secure cell. The duty watchman had some phone numbers for her opposite part in London and connected us up.

"This is Erik Svensson, from the Bureau. Who am I speaking to?"  
"My name is Bob Howard, we spoke earlier. Do you have Mo, Dr O'Brien, and her violin nearby?"  
"We do, indeed. Care to explain what's happening?"  
"Some of the other European occult security services were worried about the Mittag-Leffler Institute. Could you state, for the record, when you started to suspect Mo?"  
"Sometime last week, she was dabbling in equations that were four, maybe five, leaps of intuition away from achieving a level 1 summoning. Yesterday, she was displaying signs of having made two or three of those leaps. This morning, I saw a fully drawn Dho-Nha curve and enough optics set up in a manner similar to an optical summoning bench. According with standing instructions, I stunned her, then administered a sedative and we've kept her sedated since."  
"Good, according to the reports she filed, your observations are in line with what she has filed as progress reports. Are your standing orders to detain immediately?"  
"No, we've been instructed to subtly misguide until a breakthrough seems inevitable. Only in cases where actual summoning seems imminent will we actually go as far as I did today."  
"Excellent, I have written this down in case file BEURLING STURGEON GAMMA, a copy of which will be sent to the Bureau with the next secure dispatch. Now, please, make sure Mo has a mobile and signal, so she can call in or debrief when she wakes up. I understand if you continue to not wanting to release her, I will be there tomorrow morning, so you can see my warrant card, then I'll take her off your hands.


End file.
